Thursday, December 10, 2009

Wednesday at the Trials

Notes from Wednesday at the Trials:

** Here’s something I’ve never heard before. Just before the start of practice, an announcer comes on the PA system and says. “One minute to red practice. Players may cool their sliders but no practice slides.” Cool their sliders? Has anyone else ever heard this? For the record, the players seem to ignore the advice. Guess they cooled their sliders down back at the hotel in the mini-bar.

** Too bad the Martin-Ferbey match got out of hand so early. It really deflated the crowd who were looking for an edge-of-the-seat game rather than the one they got. For the record, Dave Nedohin’s shot in the second was a) really tough and b) almost perfect. A half-inch difference and he’s got the possibility of getting one.

** Ferbey, by the way, is the best quote among the curlers here. Although sometimes you can’t quote him. After yesterday’s game I asked him what he was thinking when he saw Martin take three. “Fuck,” he said, laughing. That didn’t make it into the Globe.

** The daily newspaper put out for the Trials is called The Morning Roar and it features a Q+A with two teams every day, one men’s. one women’s. The questions are the same everyday for each team and are a bit off the wall, making for interesting reading. For example, one question is Who is the most annoying celebrity. Jason Gunnlaugson’s choice? Linda Moore.

** Stupid Media Question of the Day: A guy asked Jennifer Jones if she thought the competition here this week was going to be tough.

Steal sliders do need to be cooled off. Players throw them on the ice at the back of the sheet and they will melt a little patch. I suppose they would not slide very well if they were melting a puddle during your first slide.

Absolutely sliders need to be cooled. Jumping straight into the hack and taking practice slides with a warm slider causes the pebble in front of the hack to break down very quickly, and shortly you'll have a big flat spot.

While the spot affected isn't in play, it does affect how the sliding surface feels underfoot as you're driving out of the hack, and that can affect your feel on light-weight shots.

In Moncton last year at the world's the curlers generally adhered to this and you would see them standing with only there slider on the ice at the backboards. As Joe said, it melts the pebble when you slide warm, but it melts all the way into the house, which is in play.